Archive for March, 2011

I watched Dana Delany’s new ABC show, “Body of Proof,” last night and I can’t say I was impressed. The brief review is that I’ll give it another couple of episodes, but I don’t expect it to last.*

Body of Proof follows the life and career of Medical Examiner Megan Hunt, once a high-flying neurosurgeon, who now works in Philadelphia’s Medical Examiner’s Office after a car accident abruptly ended her neurosurgery career. As a Medical Examiner Megan applies her vast medical knowledge, keen instincts and variously charming and scalpel-like personality to the task of solving the medical mysteries of the dead and bringing the people responsible for their deaths to justice. But that’s only half the show.

On the surface, the show sounds promising; in addition to her job as a Medical Examiner, Megan Hunt has no real friends (thanks to her often-acerbic personality, which she uses to keep people at bay), a failed marriage, and a broken relationship with her young daughter, the latter two thanks to her obsessive dedication to her former career. In addition to the weekly mysteries, then, we should be intrigued to see how Megan overcomes her weaknesses, rebuilds her old relationships, and builds new ones.

Trouble is…. We’ve seen all this before. Irascible medical detective? Quincy. (Or, for those too young to remember Quincy, House.) Crime fighter with broken personal relationships? The Equalizer. Scientific crime-fighting with cut up bodies on a table? Almost any procedural of the last 20 years. Witty, snappy, ironic dialogue? Too many shows to name, and it’s become cliché.

And that’s the problem with Body of Proof: there’s nothing special about it. Not the stories, not the investigation, not the dialogue, and mostly not the cast. Regarding the cast, Delaney herself is an excellent actress deserving of better writing. From among the supporting cast, Sonja Sohn (“Detective Baker”) is a favorite from her role in The Wire. The rest… eh. Jeri Ryan (“Dr. Kate Murphy”) didn’t appear enough to make an impression. Windell Middlebrooks (“Dr. Brumfield”) risks being turned into the show’s regular punching bag. John Carroll Lynch’s character (“Detective Morris”) is a walking stereotype, “the cop who hates the star’s character but eventually turns into an ally she charmingly annoys.” Nicholas Bishop as Delaney’s sidekick (cop-turned-ME “Peter Dunlop”) who’s willing to tell her what she needs to hear… well, lose the stubble-beard, guy. It’s another cliché. Of course, so is the whole character.

The one relatively bright spot was seen in Delany/Hunt’s relationship with her daughter. Obviously estranged (a fact perhaps exacerbated by her ex-husband, who has custody), Hunt struggles to find a way to begin reconnecting with “Lacey” on the occasion of Lacey’s birthday. No spoilers, but, she does, and the final payoff is nicely handled — for once avoiding the trite.

But, that was about it. As I wrote at the start, I’ll give the show another couple of episodes to see if it improves, but I don’t think this “Body” will be rising from the table any time soon.

*Yeah, I know I said that about Rizzoli and Isles and was proved massively wrong, but cable has relatively lower standards for what constitutes a “hit” than do the broadcast networks. “Body of Proof” has a much higher hurdle to clear.

UPDATE: According to Variety, Body’s premiere enjoyed “3” rating in the coveted 18-49 category, with 13.9 million viewers. That’s a good start, but the key will be to see the trend over the next several weeks.

The price of the Beefy Crunch Burrito had gone up from 99 cents to $1.49 and the man at the Rigsby Road Taco Bell drive-thru had just ordered seven.

The fast food customer was so disgruntled by the price hike he shot an air gun at the manager, displayed a semiautomatic assault rifle and pistol while in the restaurant’s parking lot, fled as police were called, exchanged gunfire with three officers who pulled him over, then barricaded himself in his hotel room — all over $3.50 plus additional tax.

The final incident in the burrito-triggered spree happened Sunday afternoon at the Rodeway Inn on North W.W. White Road, engaging SWAT negotiators in a more than three-hour standoff, according to officials and witnesses.

The man, whose name was not released because he had not been charged, faces three attempted capital murder charges for the exchange of gunfire with police plus possible other charges, said police spokesman Sgt. Chris Benavides. No one was injured in the incident.

Don’t these people get it? It’s the principle of the thing! We’re talking a Beefy Crunch Burrito, here! How much torment must a man endure, before it becomes too much?

You’ve no doubt heard of the massive quake in Japan yesterday. Magnitude 8.9, aftershocks over magnitude 7 on the scale, killer tidal waves — yeah, the Japanese are having a real bad day.

There’s plenty of information out on the web, but I wanted to share this one in particular, via Hot Air: an animation by NOAA of the wave effect as it bounced back and forth across the Pacific. Like ripples in a pond… except we’re talking about the biggest ocean on the planet:

Letters delivered years after they were sent are always fascinating, sort of like time-capsules from another era. The latest case involves two letters sent during World War II that finally reached their destinations (sort of). The common thread is that both involved Camp Roberts, California…

On May 17, 1943, Lt. Mervin Teig wrote a letter home from the sprawling Army base north of Paso Robles. He had signed up for military service 10 days after Pearl Harbor and just wanted to let the folks know he was still OK.

“How’s good old Iowa?” he wrote. “Has Tilford cracked up the Ford yet? If he’s smart, he’ll stay there and feed the pigs and polish the Ford. I see too many of these young fellows in uniform out here.”

The young officer saw combat in Europe, emerged unscathed and, after a business career in Mason City, Iowa, died about 10 years ago. His younger brother Tilford stayed on the farm.

About a month ago, Tilford Teig received a phone call from a person whose name and position he didn’t catch. The caller asked whether Teig wanted an old letter sent by Mervin to their parents, who are long deceased.

The man could have been from the Postal Service’s “mail recovery center” in Atlanta — a facility known during a less euphemistic era as the “dead letter office,” where workers try to puzzle out the proper destinations for millions of errant items.

And then, just a little later…

McMaster is trying to locate a Miss R.T. Fletcher — the addressee of the letter delivered to Camp Roberts just two weeks ago. That’s more than 66 years since Aug. 9, 1944, when the letter was postmarked in Montgomery, Ala.

“It just came right in with the rest of the mail,” he said. “There was no explanation.”

The return address was torn off the envelope when it arrived, and McMaster doesn’t feel right about reading the letter inside.

“I respect privacy,” he said. “And we wouldn’t want to get the institution in trouble by violating postal regulations.”

Now that’s weird. I can see a couple of Twilight Zone-style stories in this.